Aztec culture

“ Of course we see the rise of the Aztec nation, a small cycle, but like the Gothic upon the Roman, it comes at the end of the general American break-up—an incursion of barbarians settling on and preserving for us fragments of the culture that preceded them, just as has happened over and over again all over the world. ”

“ To maintain the myth of the alleged Aztec power and its inaccurate greatness, is to remain at the mercy of the conquerors cultural heirs, who in this way prevents us from knowing at a greater depth the ancient civilization of which we are living part.
Of course, the mexica formidable ability to break the depressive inertia of the Anahuac culture in the Postclassical must be recognized. Their great will power and temperance to overcome the hegemony consolidation challenges. Their ability to re-functionalize art is an undeniable proof of the reaches and talent that the mexica culture had. ”

“ The cause of humanity, indeed, has gained. They live under a better system of laws, a more assured tranquillity, a purer faith.{64} But all does not avail. Their civilization was of the hardy character which belongs to the wilderness. The fierce virtues of the Aztec were all his own. They refused to submit to European culture,—to be engrafted on a foreign stock. ”

“ Even such fragments of Aztec lore as survived the fanaticism of the Conquistadores in Mexico are wanting to the annals of the earlier Central American civilization. It was a culture of rich growth in its day and place, destined like that of the contemporary Roman Empire, to tempt the cupidity of a hardier race, and after an unavailing struggle, to fall before the might of numbers and superior physique. Howbeit, the Aztec Goths and Vandals overran the isthmus, and when the Spanish invasion came, it met only the late subjects of Montezuma's widespread, ill-governed kingdom. ”

“ If the country had never, in the previous ages, felt the influence of a higher culture than that of the Aztecs, it would not have now, and never could have had, ruined cities like Mitla, Copan and Palenque. Not only was the system of writing shown by the countless inscriptions quite beyond the attainments of Aztec art, but also the abundant sculptures and the whole system of decoration found in the old ruins. ”

“ Their dark countenances and long hair, their vestments and arms, were all of an Aztec character; yet a second and more scrutinizing glance made it apparent, that one, at least, if not two of them, was of another and nobler race. ”

“ The contrast between the steel-clad cavaliers of Castile, whose burnished armor blazed and glittered in the brilliant torch-light, and rung under their heavy martial tramp upon the marble floor, and the comparatively fairy figures of the gaudily apparelled Aztecs, was as strong as could possibly be presented in a scene like this. The costumes and customs of each were matter of wonder and admiration to the other. The Aztec trembled at the mysterious power, the incomprehensible weapons, of the white man. ”

“ It is more likely to think that only by force they could implant it and that the spirituality of some aspects of the aztec life should come from an ancient tradition, betrayed in it’s his essence for the benefit of a temporary structure dominated by a ruthless will to power". ”

“ But, without insisting upon this conjecture, it is clear that there were other and earlier builders than the Aztecs. The Toltecs passed away, as a nation, a full century, according to the legend, before the arrival of the Aztecs. Their works filled the country. Accounts of them abounded in the Tezcucan tablets. They were celebrated by the Aztec painters. They were still magnificent and wonderful in ruins, when the Spaniards arrived. And yet, among the present race of Indians in Mexico, there is no tradition respecting them, no knowledge of their origin, no interest whatever in their history. ”

“ From their small beginning as a handful of hunted creatures, hiding in the rushes of a swamp, they had grown to be an all-powerful nation, carrying a triumphant warfare throughout the land, and enlarging their boundaries with every triumph. The shocking features of their sanguinary religion make them odious to our minds. It is difficult to accommodate it to the gentle SCULPTURE REPRESENTING HUMAN SACRIFICE.
traits of the Aztec character, which shows them to be of domestic tastes, affectionate and mild in temper. ”

“ Gone are the sheltering forests, and much of the land scorched by the merciless sun lies barren and deserted. Gone too are the many white-towered cities, and dead is the blossom of Aztec civilisation. ”

“ Our chief concern, however, in groping our way through the tangled labyrinth of tradition, is to ascertain the story of the Aztecs, whose advent has been already announced. It was about the year 1160, that they departed from Aztlan, the original seat of their tribe, on their journey of southern emigration. Their pilgrimage seems to have been interrupted by numerous halts and delays, both on their route through the northern regions now comprehended in the modern Republic of Mexico, as well as in different parts of the Mexican valley which was subsequently to become their home and capital. ”

“ The Spaniards, first hailed as gods by the Aztecs, because of their fair skins, their "canoes with wings," their armor, their horses, and their artillery, conquered the country, laid waste the fair cities of the lakes and the valley, and, with iron heel, stamped out the last vestiges of Aztec civilization—"a civilization that," as one historian says, "might have instructed Europe."
And foremost in this work of destruction and of death stood Ixtlilochitl of Tezcuco, a traitor to his home-land, [Pg 195] the vassal and the ally of Cortez the Spaniard. ”

“ To one who has read the history of the Aztec irruption into the Mexican valley, of their wanderings on the lake borders for years, the shifts they were put to to obtain even the vilest food, as they were driven away from solid and fertile soil by other tribes, it does not seem improbable that their necessities should have driven them to avail themselves of the floating islands of bulrush and reeds set adrift by the storms of the rainy season. ”

“ Aztec religious art seems, in fact, to move in a more primitively realistic atmosphere than that in which the religious art of other peoples has come to similarly adept expression; it shows little of that tendency—which Yucatan and Peru in America, as well as the ancient and Oriental nations, had all attained—to subordinate the idea to the expressional form, and to soften even the horrible with the suavity of aesthetic charm. The Aztec gods were as grimly business-like in form as the realities of their service were fearful. ”

“ How would they cling to this rude mountain clime,
And bar the door of their futurity!
The Aztecs were a proud and prowent race;
In the dispersal at the far Northeast,
Now many years, they held the leading place;
Yet, in their husbandry, they were the least.
Their hands were skilled to turbulence and strife;
The bow, the lance, and the rude hunter's knife—
Such were their ready implements; but peace
Found them all unacquainted; her surcease
[94] Requires a range of weaponry diverse.
The hands that hew down others, lips that curse,
Both must be newly christened ”

“ Upon reflection it should not appear strange that a country in which the fiery imagination of the Castilian had been grafted upon the native gentleness of the Aztec, should blossom into verse as naturally as a plant turns toward the light. The love of flowers and birds, which is indigenous here, is always closely allied to that of song, in the heart of a nation ”

“ The Aztec were confessedly immigrants, who had wandered south less than five hundred years before the conquest; by their superiority as fighting-men they had won the hegemony over the kindred tribes which they found settled in the valley of Mexico, and had extended their power to both oceans and as far at least as the isthmus of Tehuantepec. ”

“ The story of those strange old cultures of Mexico and Peru has always fascinated us: the Aztec and the Inca stand forth from the dry lore of archæology with a peculiar charm, which we may [58] not have felt even in contemplating the more wonderful and ancient cultures of the Old World. For here we feel that the intellect and art of man sprang unaided from the dust, to write his pathetic story in the stones of a continent unvisited by the Jehovah of the Israelites, unknown to history, unblessed of Christianity, unrecorded and obscure. ”

“ Gallatin, we find ourselves frequently bewildered in the labyrinth of historical details and picturesque legends, which have been carefully gathered and grouped to form a romantic picture of the Aztec nation. Yet facts enough have survived, not only the wreck of the conquest, but also the comparative stagnation of the viceroyalty, to satisfy us that there was a large class of people, at least in the capitals and their vicinity, whose tastes, habits, and social principles, were nearly equal to the civilization of the Old World at that time. ”

“ From the moment of his coronation the Aztec sovereign lived in an atmosphere of adulation unknown to the mightiest potentate of the old world. Reverenced as a god, the
haughtiest nobles, sovereigns in their own land, humbled themselves before him; absolute in power, the fate of thousands depended upon a gesture of his hand. ”

“ Christianity to add to the Aztec place of torment the torture of perpetual fire and brimstone. The Aztec heaven, like the Scandinavian Valhalla, was especially reserved for their heroes who fell in battle. To these privileged souls were added those slain in sacrifice. These fortunate elect of the Aztecs seem to have been destined for a time to a somewhat lively immortality, as they at once passed into the presence of the Sun, whom they accompanied with songs and choral dances in his bright progress through the heavens. ”

“ It remains for some one to compare the Aztec with the languages of the southern Indians before the investigation is complete. While the probability is pre-eminent that the ancient Americans are of old world origin and that the519 Mayas and Nahuas reached this continent from opposite directions, it is certain that the civilization developed by each people is indigenous—that it grew up on the soil where we find it, and was shaped by the wants of man as influenced and modified by the conditions of nature and physical surroundings. ”

“ The Aztec migration is a conspicuous feature of native tradition, and is, therefore, prominent in the histories, being figured by several of the codices, as well as in Durán's Album. An early narration of the Aztec myth forms chh. ix ff. of the Historia de los Mexicanos por sus Pinturas, while the Historia de los Reynos de Colhuacan y de México, the narrative of the "Anónimo Mexicano," and Tezozomoc, i-iii, give other native versions. Mendieta, Sahagun, and Durán, are other sources for the myth. Seler [a] , ii, "Wo lag Aztlan, die Heimat der Azteken?" ”

“ The artist's name has escaped us, but the admirable and effective picture represented "Columbus contemplating the Sea."
Art should certainly be at home in Mexico, where it has found expression in various forms for hundreds of years. What were the picture-writings of the aborigines but early examples of art? There are numerous specimens of Aztec paintings illustrative of the early history of Mexico, which were produced long before the arrival of the conquering Spaniards. ”

“ To return to the stone knives; the Mexicans may very well have invented the art themselves, as they did so many others; or they may have received it from the Old World. The things themselves prove nothing either way.
The real proof of their having, at some early period, communicated with inhabitants of Europe or Asia rests upon the traditions current among them, which are recorded by the early historians, and confirmed by the Aztec picture-writings; and upon several extraordinary coincidences in the signs used by them in reckoning astronomical cycles. ”

“ Realizing the gravity of the task, I have been led to carefully weigh and investigate the different theories advanced as to the origin of the Aztecs, and to adopt the argument of the poem as the best ground on which to unite the Sun Worship of the East with the Mythology of of the West.
Reverently, and with a full realization of how great must ever be the distance between the actual work and the ideal of my early inspiration, I lay the gathered chaplet at the shrine of old Chapultepec, and only regret that the fruiting should have fallen so far short of the promise of its blooming. ”

“ But although this exalted philosophy had been adopted by the fierce and uncultured Aztecs, it had become so obscured by the introduction of cruel and inhuman rites and customs as to be almost no longer recognisable as the pure faith of the race they had succeeded in the land. The germ and core of the Aztec religion was the idea of the constant necessity of propitiating the gods by means of human sacrifice, and to this aspect of their religion we will return later. ”

“ For the sedentary tribes of the valleys, dependent chiefly upon agriculture and fishing for a livelihood, the deities presiding over vegetation, rain and earth were the most important; and after the Aztec had become settled and devoted themselves to intensive cultivation, they readily adopted these gods and gave them a high place in their pantheon. ”

“ The Aztecs, like many nations of the old world, had their Golden Age. During this blissful period, Quetzalcoatl, god of the air, dwelt on earth, and instructed men in the use of metals, in agriculture and every useful art. ”